Exhibitions and Events

Art supplies seem to multiply over time. Come on down to the studio for an Art Supply Garage Sale! My friend Jaime David and I will be selling all the great stuff we don't need anymore. You can find treasures like fabric (including hand dyed), embroidery thread, books, tools, yarn, and maybe even some hand made goodies.

Help me clean my studio and make space for new work! Over the past few years I have made a ton of quilts and other quilted items and I'm ready to say goodbye to some of them. It will be a sad day for me, but a happy day for their new families. Come check out the selection, Friday May 15. In addition to loads of awesome quilts and quilted things, I will also be selling most of my hand dyed fabric stash and some sweet hand-dyed t-shirts that I've been working on.

Not in Kansas City? Don't fear. I will be posting everything that doesn't sell to my instagram account @kimemquilts on Saturday, May 16 and you can purchase there with a PayPal account.

The Kansas City Textile Studio introduces the work of Lexie Abra Johnson. This exhibition presents fiber-based works that place the viewer within the context of the artist’s domestic understanding. By referencing traditional textiles, Johnson both embraces and questions the roles we play within our own homes and families. The artist’s use of discarded denim and live plants as predominant materials throughout the space brings up themes of both sustainability and fertility. By highlighting the deterioration of these utilitarian materials, parallels are drawn to the ideas of tradition and labor. As the artist looks backward and investigates her family’s tradition of craft, she is able to gain more perspective on the cycle of her own life.

Johnson will be interacting with the exhibition guests as she prepares food for them throughout the night. The viewers will be invited to work with her to make a common childhood comfort food, grilled cheese sandwiches. This cooperation is seen by the artist as a way to nurture her guests, and that interaction will then exist as a part of the overall work itself. This creation of a venue for community interaction is a reoccurring theme within Johnson’s work.

Lexie Abra Johnson is an interdisciplinary artist based in Kansas City, MO and is a 2015 BFA candidate at the Kansas City Art Institute. Her interactive installations and art events explore ideas of domestic relationships, fertility, agricultural sustainability, and tradition. She uses fiber processes such as embroidery, printmaking, and quilting, along with photography, sculpture, performance, and relational aesthetics in her practice.

Please join us for an exhibition of work by Kansas City native Hannah Johnston. Hannah graduated from the Kansas City Art Intitute in 2013 with a BFA in Fiber and a focus in Asian Studies and Community Arts and Service Learning.

Hannah Johnston's work explores the slender gap between the perceived and the unreal through landmarks. She uses patterning and drawing, among other methods of mark making, to create another dimensional surface within an image. In "Peripheral Landscapes" Johnston seeks to create a curious imbalance of positive and negative space that leaves the viewer questioning which is the landmark and which is the shadow.

This body of work is inspired by the work of Josef and Anni Albers, a husband and wife duo, of the Bauhaus. Josef Albers believed that teaching art was not a matter of imparting rules, but of leading students to greater awareness , “to open eyes”, to what they were seeing. Anni wrote about art, “We learn patience and endurance in following through a piece of work. We learn to respect material in working it. Formed things and thoughts live a life of their own; they radiate a meaning.” Through the medium of the quilt, this work attempts to push the boundaries of what a quilt can be. In addition to being a beautiful and functional object, can it also be tool for teaching and learning? The process of quilt making is a series of precise and committed processes. In creating this work, I chose to contemplate these ideas, specifically Josef’s Color Theory and Anni’s Work With Material, through the long and detail process of quilting. For me, it was about learning to work with open eyes. The result offers the quilt as the teacher.

About Jaime:

Jaime David is a textile artist pursuing her MFA in Textiles from the University of Kansas. Jaime has a Bachelor of Interior Architecture from Kansas State University. She was not born into a family of quilters, but somehow discovered a family in quilting. She started sewing in 2004 and hasn’t stopped. In addition to quilting, she enjoys sewing her own clothing. She is a founding member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild and an avid Bernina enthusiast. She teaches sewing throughout the KC Metro, including the Bernina Sewing Center and the Kansas City Art Institute continuing education programs. It is her greatest joy to share her love of sewing by teaching others.

Mariah Gillespie, currently pursuing a BFA in Fiber at the Kansas City Art Institute, will be showing her senior thesis work at the Kansas City Textile Studio. We are excited to showcase her innovative hand dyed and painted quilts during our regular Third Friday Opening for April.